THE THOMAS NOMINATION

THE THOMAS NOMINATION; A LAW PROFESSOR DEFENDS INTEGRITY

By ROBERTO SURO,

Published: October 8, 1991

NORMAN, Okla., Oct. 7—
Anita F. Hill rarely lectures in the classroom,, and in recent years she has pursued her political interests through quiet work on university committees and by acting as a friend and adviser to black law students. But today, she stood up before a row of television cameras and took on her critics with calm defiance.

Speaking at a news conference at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she is a tenured professor specializing in commercial law, Ms. Hill said, "My integrity has been called into question by people who have never spoken to me."

If she ever needed reassurance, Professor Hill could look beyond the cameras to a crowd of people who knew her very well. As she spoke to the nation about her accusations that Judge Clarence Thomas had subjected her to sexual harassment, she spoke with the easy confidence of someone who was talking to friends. Ovation by Students

The classroom where she became a symbol of one of the most sensitive and complex political issues of the day was crowded with students and faculty colleagues who greeted her with a standing ovation and occasionally cheered her as she spoke.

But Ms. Hill never played to her audience. She never paused to enjoy the praise. Throughout her presentation, she remained the reluctant public figure. "It has never been an issue I tried to publicize," she said.

Indeed, she said she made the allegations against Judge Thomas only because Congressional investigators specifically asked her if she had been subject to sexual harassment when she worked with him.

"It was a troubling decision for me to make even after they came forward," she said. "It was not something I wanted to grandstand about." The Role of a Victim

She came to the news conference in the role of the victim in what she has described as a subtle, private crime. And today she had to defend her desire for privacy against those in the White House and the Senate's Republican leadership who said she had waited too long to make her allegation, and that now she was just part of a last-minute effort to derail Judge Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court.

In an affidavit and during questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, she said that over a two-year period beginning in 1981 Judge Thomas frequently asked her out and embarrassed her with lewd conversation when she refused.

Today, she declined to give a public review of the behavior she ascribes to Judge Thomas, behavior that he denies.

With lawyerly prudence she said, "It would be irresponsible to comment further on this until the Senate has an opportunity to fully consider it." A Local Activist

A colleague on the law school faculty, Harry F. Tepker Jr. said of Ms. Hill, "She is an activist in the local community, but it is not fair to say she is an activist in the national, ideological community."

As an elected member of the Faculty Senate, as an adminstrative fellow in the Office of the Provost, as a board member for a local women's center and as an adviser to the Black Law Student Association, she has been low-key but effective in local matters that concerned her directly.

But having been touched by a national controversy she became an activist on a broader scale today, insisting that Judge Thomas's behavior with her be fully investigated and demanding an explanation of why her charges were not brought before all the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But she was an activist without rancor, refusing to point fingers or lay blame.

Although she insisted that her name be kept in confidence by the committee when she made the allegations last month, today Professor Hill willingly offered herself as a public accuser.

"I would be happy to cooperate in any investigation," she said. "If that means going and talking with the Senators, I am happy to do that. I would like to see the process carried through further."

Born 35 years ago in a small rural community near Tulsa, Ms. Hill had an upbringing similar to that of Judge Thomas's in Pin Point, Ga. Like him, she overcame obstacles of discrimination and poverty by force of intellect and hard work in school.

After graduating from high school as her class valedictorian, Ms. Hill went to Oklahoma State University and majored in pyschology. Then, like Judge Thomas six years earlier, she attended Yale Law School, graduating with honors in 1980.

Ms. Hill worked briefly for the law firm of Wald, Harkrader & Ross in Washington, and then in 1981 she was hired as special counsel to Judge Thomas, who then headed the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education. She has said that it was while they were working together there that he first made inappropriate advances toward her.

A year later, when he became chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she moved with him and became his personal assistant there. Her willingness to continue working with him has been cited by Judge Thomas's supporters in the Senate to detract from the credibility of her accusations.

Today she responded that at the time she made the move "there was a period when the activity stopped, and so I was under the impression at that time that that was the end of this kind of treatment and that I could go about doing my business." She contends that his advances toward her resumed a short while later.

Ms. Hill said she felt compelled by circumstances to keep working with Judge Thomas. She was then 25 years old and had little work experience. "If I quit I would have been jobless," she said.

Eventually, she did quit in 1983, after being hospitalized with what she believes were stress-related stomach pains. At the same time, Oral Roberts University approached her with an offer to teach at the law school, and she worked there until 1986, when she accepted her current appointment at the University of Oklahoma.

Charles Kothe, the former dean of the Oral Roberts law school, who had hired Ms. Hill, said that she "never once mentioned anything irregular" in her relationship with Judge Thomas.

Photo: Anita F. Hill at a news conference yesterday at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she is a tenured professor. At rear was David Swank, dean of the law school. (Scott Anderson for The New York Times)